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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Month: November 2008

  • Give it a Twhirl

    I wouldn’t say that I’m addicted to my Twitter account, nor would I say that I can quit any time I want. After all, it’s one of the best tools available to me for staying in touch with friends whether I’m in front of a computer screen or out-and-about, so until something genuinely better comes along (or it gets bought out by some corporate behemoth and subsequently trashed) I’ll be sticking with Twitter for the time being.

    Yes, I’ve heard of the telephone. I just don’t like talking on the damned things.

    Anyway. Short of refreshing the Twitter webpage every few minutes, and since the IM integration has gone the way of the dodo bird, a desktop application seems like a useful way to manage one’s Twitter interactions. I’m a big, big fan so far of Twhirl… and now, thanks to these instructions, I can run Twhirl under Kubuntu (the current Linux installation on my laptop).

    I suppose that I’ll miss seeing the Fail Whale…

    No, on second thought, I won’t.

  • Brainstorming: Flying old airplanes into your mind.

    I feel silly.

    Actually, that’s not true. What I feel is down and blah and damned near to emo, whatever the hell that is. Since I don’t want to be in the dumps, however, I’m deliberately turning my mind toward silly things in an effort to perk myself up.

    If you believe my previous post, I’ve been giving some thought to things I can do here that people will find entertaining on some level. As I exercise my brain in search of a great idea, I think I have something that’ll do the trick. It’s silly, it plays to my strengths, and I have some experience with the medium already.

    I have just over one week to prepare it, however.

    …

    You thought I was going to tell you what I’m doing in advance? Don’t be silly! Someone could steal my dorky lamebrained silly brilliant idea! Pish-posh! You’ll just have to wait like everyone else. Think on it as an adventure.

    Yes, I’m a meanie. (Also: Terribly subtle.)

  • The Fight Against Winding Down

    I approach forty years old. I’ll never again be that silly lad filled with nervous excitement, constantly seeking out new sights and experiences. I understand that, and accept it. C’mon: That kid was annoying, most of the time.

    I don’t, however, like how far I’ve come from the days when I could dream, create, reach out and share. What have I done lately? The summer music project was, by almost any measure, a complete bust. My notable accomplishment there was in actually finishing the silly thing, but I couldn’t even continue as I meant to at the beginning, with the voice recording and music beds and clever stuff.

    I need to recapture at least some of my former enthusiasm for life. The last few years were rough, but I’d hate to think that a divorce and being unemployed and getting older are enough to flatten my joie de vivre.

    I believe that the first part of getting my life back involves sharing and connecting. That gregarious fellow who made good friends hither and yon seems to have disappeared, and I’d like to reclaim some of that lost life and skill. I can only do so much with the schedule I live with, mind you.

    Once again, I need to put some priority into keep this silly website updated. There was a time when I posted several times a week, regularly! Can you imagine it? Do you know what else? I used to reply to email messages! I used to write email messages to people out of the blue, just to say hello and ask how they’re doing!

    Yeah, I know. I can’t believe it either, anymore.

    So. One more time, trying to carry on the fight against winding down. Can I do it, this time?

  • I like my sea kittens battered and fried.

    In case you were wondering if PETA have completely lost their collective freaking mind, please permit me to present Exhibit #45,829-A, the Sea Kittens.

    People don’t seem to like fish.

    That depends upon how they’re prepared, I suppose.

    Whoever was in charge of creating a positive image for fish needs to go right back to working on the Britney Spears account and leave our scaly little friends alone.

    So… Nature has a PR team? Well now. Most of the marketing & PR types I’ve ever known like to hang out at sushi bars, which seems like a major conflict of interests in this case, doesn’t it?

    (And: Britney Spears? Really? You guys couldn’t even try to keep this idiocy timely in some fashion?)

    …We’re going to start by retiring the old name for good. When your name can also be used as a verb that means driving a hook through your head, it’s time for a serious image makeover.

    I have a clue for the folks at PETA: Small stupid scaly animals do not care about their “image.”

    (On another note, I know people who put metal into their heads for decorative purposes, so there goes that part of their argument.)

    And who could possibly want to put a hook through a sea kitten?

    Many people. Some call them… fishermen.

    Right. Like calling a fish by some cutesy name (let alone a creepy attempt at anthropomorphism) is going to eliminate from all humanity the urge to hook, net, gut and deep-fry those tasty critters. May I invite y’all to rejoin this little thing we call, “Reality”?

    Idiots.

  • Relieved

    I’m relieved, mostly. Not because I think that there’s some kind of monumental, fundamental shift in the life of the world going on because of tonight’s elections, but because I’m getting what I wanted: A chance to see if some of the worst abuses from the last few years can be turned around just a bit. There’ll still be screwups. They’re all politicians, after all. At least there’s a chance that I won’t want to cringe and/or beat my head against the wall every time the new guy speaks. That counts for a lot.

    I debated breaking my non-posting streak for this, especially since it’s going to be completely lost in the post-election noise, but I figured that I should get my meager thoughts down for posterity. This is supposed to be my journal, after all.

    So. I’m glad. I’m relieved.

    Now, can all of you jokers honking your horns along MLK please give it up? I’d like to get some sleep.

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